North Ridgeville High school student has life changing summer

NORTH RIDGEVILLE — Where do you end up when you fly two hours from Cleveland to Atlanta, six hours to Peru and then ride a motor boat six more hours on the Tahuayo River?
You end up deep in the Amazon Rain Forest in an area you can only reach by boat or airplane.
Not too many people can say they’ve had such a travel experience but Allyson Schmitt can.
The North Ridgeville High School senior spent three weeks in the rain forest conducting research this past summer.
Schmitt traveled to a remote region of northern Peru with North Ridgeville High School biology teacher Elizabeth Katoa, Kenyon College biology professor Kathryn Edwards and several Kenyon undergraduates.
Schmitt is taking academic partnership classes with Kenyon and she earned college credit for the trip.
The research team stayed in a lodge powered by propane with stoves for cooking and minimal refrigeration. If someone caught a fish it had to be cooked the same day.
“It was pretty remote,” Schmitt said. “We were right on the edge of the Tahuayo River surrounded by the rain forest.”
Their research involved studying plant and invertebrate diversity between habitat zones in the Amazon flood plain.
“That’s trees and bugs in English,” Schmitt said with a laugh, adding that she has never been the type of person to shy away from handling insects. “I can’t say the same for my little sister. She freaks out over every little thing.”
Katoa said the plant research consisted of taking bark samples from trees for DNA bar coding, which helps keep track of plant species. Insect research involved cataloging and assessing invertebrate diversity.
Conducting the research involved standing in dense patches of jungle and muddy currents of river exposed to all the natural elements and animals found in such a place. At times, Schmitt found herself in waters inhabited by piranhas.
But none of this deterred her from carrying on with the research. Having such a hands-on research experience changed the way she sees the world and made her want to focus on a life path involving biological or zoological research.
“It was a life-changing experience because it really let me see what it was like to go out and do research yourself,” she said. “It helped me realize more what I want to do with my future.”
The nearest villages to the region Schmitt traveled to are inhabited by a couple hundred indigenous people. Those villages have some solar power but no plumbing. Getting there requires hopping in a boat and traveling a half-hour up the river.
Traveling into these areas complemented Schmitt’s scientific experience with a cultural one. The villagers she met speak a form of Spanish mixed with an indigenous language, but they still were able to communicate with each other just enough to learn a few things.
“We had a full-on experience with dyeing things, learning how to grind up roots and weave baskets,” Katoa said.
This was the first time Schmitt traveled outside the United States and she won’t soon forget the experience.
“It was a really cool experience because it is so different than everything here,” she said. “You read about it, hear about it, see pictures, but you never really know what it’s like until you’re there.”